A Binge too Far #61: The Creep duo (2014 – 2017)

Frame from Creep (2014)

As we are about to tackle Shudder’s The Creep Tapes (2014) in Static Age, we take a look at the two Jason Blum-produced films that spawned the hit TV series.

 

Creep (2014) poster

Creep (2014)

 

Down on his luck, videographer Aaron Franklin (Patrick Brice) answers an online advertisement from Josef (Marc Duplass) who’s supposedly dying from a brain tumour, and wants his last days to be filmed in order to be presented as a gift to his yet-unborn child. It ends up that the advertiser becomes obsessed with the videographer, justifying the film’s title as he gradually becomes a creep.

 

The protagonist duo penned the screenplay (with Brice directing and Duplass producing), of what must be the most boring time I’ve hard with a horror movie in many years. Following a successful premiere at the South by Southwest film festival (I don’t know what the audience was thinking), it had a bit of turbulent history (I think I know what the distributors were thinking) until it found a home on video on demand, when it was hailed by critics as some sort of great psychological thriller. To me it is just another found footage trash that becomes even worse because all you see on screen is two people talking. Had the two male leads developed a homoerotic romance, things could be a bit more interesting.

 

Creep 2 (2017) poster

Creep 2 (2017)

 

A Youtuber and all around alternative semi-Goth girl (Desiree Akhavan) is answering an online ad by serial killer (Marc Duplass) who seems to have suicidal tendencies.

 

Written by Patrick Brice (who also directed) and Marc Duplass, this sequel is admittedly a better effort than its predecessor, mainly due to some surprisingly clever choices it makes with its camera work and editing, as well as the screenplay which just when you thought you knew where it’s going it heads into a totally different direction.

 

Be warned though that despite its ‘woke’ approach (both central characters seem to be gay) – that comes along with full frontal male nudity, but only a mere glimpse of tit from the female – and its very brief time (like the first film the running time is again thankfully under 80 minutes long), this is unmistakably boring; just not as much as the original.

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A Binge too Far #60: Doomwatch duo (1972 – 1999)

Doomwatch (1972) poster

Following the classic BBC sci-fi television series Doomwatch (1970 – 1972) – that I’ll tackle in Static Age soon – horror studio Tigon British Film Productions made an acclaimed 1972 film under the same name, which in turn was followed by a 1990s sequel.

 

Doomwatch (1972) poster

Doomwatch (1972)

 

Dumping chemicals into the waters is never a good idea, and this is exactly what is happening on the shores of a British island in the middle of nowhere, turning the locals into deformed creatures. Although this was directed by Peter Sasdy, who had already given us the masterful Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), with this project he resorted to his television drama sensibilities (the small screen was the filmmaker’s usual employer) delivering what could barely be characterized as a sci-fi opus.

 

Doomwatch: Winter Angel (1999)

 

Atomic scientist Dr. Spencer Quist (Phillip Stone) sends a note to university professor Neil Tannahill (Trevor Eve), informing him that the Soviets are using British shores in order to dump nuclear waste. Although the Doomwatch watchgroup is at the centre of this mediocre TV-movie, everything else is reminiscent of the then-popular The X-Files (1993 – 2018), from conspiracies to secret facilities, and whatnot. It was directed by Roy Battersby and it is barely watchable.

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A Binge too Far #59: The Decadent Arts and Sinful Crafts of the Five Nights at Freddy's duo (2023 – 2025)

Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) poster

Based on the same-titled video games that spawned a whole universe of novels and action figures, this duo of horror films from Blumhouse was panned by critics, but became a sensation for audiences.

 

Five Night at Freddy's (2023)

Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)

 

Mike (Josh Hutcherson) lives with trauma – inherited by his missing brother who was taken many years ago – and doesn’t seem able to put his life together as he is a certified loser that keeps getting fired by one dead-end job after the other. His newest gig is as a security guard in an abandoned pizzeria that back in the 1980s was massive attraction for youngsters, mainly due to a selection of animatronics human-sized toys. But spending the nights in the old building won’t be an easy feat.

 

Made on a modest $20 million budget – which surprisingly managed to afford some pretty stunning mechanical special effects – by producers Jason Blum and Scott Cawthon, this is rarely creepy, and it is rarely lively enough to maintain your interest. Director Emma Tammi [The Wind (2018)] does a competent job, but most of it is standard (by the numbers) coverage, and it doesn’t really offer anything inspired. The critics took note and commented negatively, but somehow audiences loved it as it grossed a stunning $297.1 million – an excellent amount that spawned a sequel.

 

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025)

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2025)

 

Although this was made a couple of years after the original, it is set a year after the events of the first film and it finds Abby (Piper Rubio) reconnecting her animatronics friends from the local abandoned pizzeria when she feels left out of science class, but as the deadly robots offer an emotional hand of help, they also offer pain.

 

Once again directed by Emma Tammi, this doesn’t really take advantage of the potential that creepy animatronics could have – it is only really scary on very few occasions – and it even spends a lot of time to unnecessary character development, in a needless attempt to present itself as a serious suspense picture, forgetting that it needs to be a horror movie. Nonetheless it grossed a bombastic $237 million, so who am I to judge?

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A Binge too Far #58 – Smile unlimited (2022 – 2024)

Smile (2022)

Happy New Year! For me New Year’s Eve is always about changes and setting new goals. Well, for starters, I thought I’d change the way my posts work in Cinema Head Cheese. You’ll still be getting one post per month by yours truly but Static Age becomes a bi-annual column (which means the next installment will be presented in December 2027) while A Binge too Far will still be available monthly. I decided upon this new arrangement in order for Static Age to grow even bigger and include more content each time (I’m thinking more than fifty subjects overall tackled per post), while of course A Binge too Far will remain pretty much the same, featuring a special each time that’ll included a couple reviews of a duo of films or a trilogy. Got it?

 

Smile (2022) poster

Smile (2022)

 

Clinical psychiatrist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) takes her job seriously and approaches each case with care and ethos. When one day a patient with a haunting smile kills herself in front of her, she will have to search deep into her own family history and face severe trauma from the past.

 

Written and directed by Parker Finn (his feature-length debut, based on a short film he made) this well-made horror opus is scary (the jump scares will shake your foundation) and takes its subject matter seriously (kudos for approaching the sensitive nature of mental health so carefully). With a budget of $17 million, it went on to gross $217.4 million, proving to be one of the most successful pictures of the year, regardless of genre. It is the kind of film that gives us hope about where our beloved horror genre is going; it has me thinking that it is in good hands.

 

Smile 2 (2024) poster

Smile 2 (2024)

 

Pop superstar Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is about to embark on a lengthy world tour when the pressure and stress gets the better of her and she has a mental breakdown that becomes a drug addiction. However this will prove to be only the beginning of her troubles as she experiencing uncanny visions and weird happenings.

 

Writer/director Parker Finn returns with a sequel that doesn’t exactly surpasses the original in eeriness, but it is much bigger in scope – the generous $28 million budget allowed for that, not to mention the running time that exceeds the 2 hour mark – resulting in a horror blockbuster that is difficult to deny. It was nominated for several awards and it even won a few of them, the critics praised it, and the audiences rewarded it with $138.1 million at the box-office. Needless to say another sequel is already on the way.

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